Lock and Code: The Night before Christmas (Weston-Super-Mare)

A really fun room to get you in the festive spirit

It didn’t seem to make sense to do three rooms at Lock and Code and not do their fourth room, so we decided to go for the full house and booked us in for ‘The Night Before Christmas’ which as I’m sure you can guess is a festively themed room where you need to locate the naughty and nice lists to ensure children get the correct gifts.

Unlike a lot of Christmas rooms that we have seen this one was 100% family friendly and there was not a tinge of horror about it.

This room is located at the same location as their ‘Alchemists Enigma’ room, so it’s a little out of the way and slightly odd, but it works. Just don’t turn up too early as there isn’t much of a waiting room.

This was a fun room with everything you associate with Christmas Eve, including many things I hate, but that’s just me. If you’re looking for a bit of escapism and a nice light hearted room, then this is definitely that.

PUZZLES

I’ve alluded to the fact that this room has everything you’d expect from Christmas Eve and it really does. Dominos? Yep! Charades? You betcha! Stockings? Of course! The problem for me was that I don’t like any of those things, well stockings are ok I guess, but I detest charades.

The puzzles in this room are arguably on the easier side as you would expect and we were on for a record time, until we came across the dominos. A puzzle so simple that kids get it right away, took us a very long time and we were pretty much spoon fed the answer. It wasn’t a bad puzzle, but we hated it.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

It’s pretty hard to get the room design wrong on this one, it was supposed to look like a living room at Christmas, and it did. It even had whisky and mince pies which were edible if you decided you needed a pick-me-up.

This room is very much a first gen room in terms of the technology used and one puzzle obviously involves the GM watching you and pressing a button when he decides you have completed it. That’s fine but don’t go in expecting cutting edge tech, you won’t find it here.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

A very attentive GM gave clues and nudges through a tv screen located in the room.

ANYTHING ELSE

Christmas rooms never really feel like real escape rooms to me as they are basically just ‘pop ups’ with a very short shelf life. Why invest in a one month room? But this one was fun and there were some nice features. We spoke with the GM after the game and he explained the thinking behind the puzzles, and basically they were trying to make it encompass usual Christmas Eve activity, a nice touch.

Success / Failed

Final Rating:

Team: 2 players

Address: Unit 11, Ivy House Business Centre, Wolvershill Road, West wick, ​​Weston-super-Mare, BS29 6LB

Website: https://www.lockandcode.co.uk/